White awaits word on layoff hearing

Brian Lockhart

Updated 11:22 pm, Sunday, October 20, 2013

BRIDGEPORT -- A new City Council may eventually wind up with an old staffer.

A week after voters elect members of the city's 20-person legislative body, the Civil Service Commission is scheduled on Nov. 12 to consider whether to grant ex-council aide Thomas White a chance to fight his termination.

"He's entitled to a hearing to contest whether this was truly a layoff," said Thomas Bucci, White's attorney and a former Bridgeport mayor.

If Civil Service agrees to take up the case and Bucci wins, White could have his job back.

"I am hopeful they will review the facts and do so," White said in a statement.

White is a former Republican councilman hired in the middle of the last decade as that body's legislative liaison by Council President Andres Ayala, a Democrat, who has since joined the state Legislature.

White's $47,411 position was cut out of the budget in spring 2012 because of fiscal constraints, and he has been fighting on two fronts to get it back.

While Bucci and White have been seeking their day in court before the Civil Service Commission, they also filed a parallel free-speech lawsuit pending in U.S. District Court against Bridgeport.

White alleges that the layoff violated his First Amendment rights because the council's true motive was to shut him up. The lawsuit claims White "acted as the conscience and moral compass for the City Council, dispensing advice and opinions on the ethical behavior the public expected from members."

For example, according to the suit, White objected to unnamed council members voting on matters in which they had a possible conflict of interest, such as pay raises that affected their own salaries if they held a city job, or pay raises for relatives who are municipal employees.

White also criticized how some on the council allegedly schemed to increase their annual $9,000 stipends, according to the lawsuit.

He and Bucci allege that since White ruffled feathers, the city defunded the position, claiming the need to save money as a pretense to fire him and deny him his due-process right to a hearing.

They also point to the city's subsequent hiring of Walter Boyer, who after losing his $42,086 position with the Department on Aging was transferred to the city clerk's office in September 2012 and given the title of "legislative liaison." At the time, the city said Boyer's new salary was $42,799.

"The money they saved on Mr. White was moved to the city clerk and somebody was hired under that umbrella," Bucci said. "So there was no savings -- maybe a couple of thousand dollars. I would hazard to predict ... Mr. White, if offered to continue in his position and if there was truly fiscal reasons, would have taken a pay cut. I suspect the council did not want to hear Mr. White's opinions any longer."

More recently, the council is considering spending money on a consultant to help oversee municipal finances and craft the annual city budget. White and Bucci have said that proposal further bolsters their argument.

Even though White wants his Civil Service hearing, Bucci said were it denied, it might bolster their federal case. That suit also has been moving forward. Last month, City Council President Thomas McCarthy was deposed by Bucci.

Later this month, White will be deposed by the city attorney's office.

Bucci said while a victory before Civil Service would not automatically end White's federal case, he and his client would discuss whether to continue with the federal litigation.